…
The sun beats down on the hood of the tan station wagon as she pulls into the parking lot. The car seats are sticky. Air conditioning is blasting through her short, dark hair. She reaches across the passenger seat to grab her purse.
And a box.
Someone in a uniform takes her money and weighs the carton. She sticks the postage onto the corner and writes down her own address. Above that, she writes my name. And when that package arrives at our door in a couple of days she will lie and tell me it’s from someone else.
I never knew her as a woman. I will never have an adult conversation with her about motherhood or marriage. I’ll never get to ask her my hard questions.
I only knew her as a child. Part of me wonders if, because of that, I never really knew her at all.
But now I am a mother too. And I understand the fierce love that abides in the deep recesses of a mother’s heart.
I know why she did what she did on that summer day. And if it were possible to love her more for it, I do.
It’s twenty-five years later. The gift that was packed inside that brown box is broken and gone. It is ashes and dust. But there was another gift inside. I am discovering it now. One that has traversed time to reach me. One that doesn’t waste away.
I sip from a steaming cup, looking through a window at brightly colored leaves. The house is quiet and I am lost in thought.
There are no accidents. And though his coming back into my life had felt like a haunting, I am strangely at peace.
I am glad I asked him that tentative question, and I am content with his honest answer that hurt for a moment but exposed the truth.
A breeze pushes through the spindly oak in our back yard. It surrenders its precious few leaves, red paper that will turn to brown and feed the earth with its sacrifice.
The time is coming for giving thanks.
And I find myself deeply thankful.
…
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 9, 2012
Things Only Heaven Can Fix (Part Three)
…
He speaks with unnatural ease, as though nothing is the matter. As though he is simply regarding the weather and not what has happened to our loved ones.
Ones I will never see again in this temporal world.
“I had her laid next to your grandfather in the veteran’s cemetery.”
On a scrap of paper an address is written. I watch shaky hands writing numbers and letters that may guide us back to her one day. Or at least to a stone with her name on it.
I was not there when she took her last breath. I was not there when they placed her body in the ground.
And I hate him for this.
Why did you do it? Why? I want to scream. I want to wring my hands around his neck, though outwardly I listen to his rambling explanations and details. How he dragged her across the country. From state to state, like one in hiding. How he tried to care for her himself, though she was elderly and he was not capable.
None of it makes sense. His mind is drenched in paranoia. His thoughts are like secrets whispered in shadows.
I am weary. I want to leave. And I never want to come back again. But he is the keeper of the story. He has locked in his mind a million images of my mother that I long to see, images he will take to the grave with him if he does not give them away. And so I ask him to tell me the things I don’t know. Tell me the stories she would have told me.
He slips into story and memory, like a song the heart knows. And I find myself softening as I listen. It soothes some aching part of me to know these things I’ve never heard. A puzzle piece found and put in place.
“Do you remember that gift?” I ask him tentatively, a chink in my armor showing. “The one you sent for my birthday? The one that was my favorite?”
I am a small girl tearing at the packaging tape on a big brown box. Pure joy rushes through my veins because it isn’t often that a box so big comes for a person so small. Mommy stands beside me, watching, with a smile on her face.
No. He doesn’t recall.
“I didn’t send that.” The corner of his mouth curls. “She must have sent that to you.”
…
He speaks with unnatural ease, as though nothing is the matter. As though he is simply regarding the weather and not what has happened to our loved ones.
Ones I will never see again in this temporal world.
“I had her laid next to your grandfather in the veteran’s cemetery.”
On a scrap of paper an address is written. I watch shaky hands writing numbers and letters that may guide us back to her one day. Or at least to a stone with her name on it.
I was not there when she took her last breath. I was not there when they placed her body in the ground.
And I hate him for this.
Why did you do it? Why? I want to scream. I want to wring my hands around his neck, though outwardly I listen to his rambling explanations and details. How he dragged her across the country. From state to state, like one in hiding. How he tried to care for her himself, though she was elderly and he was not capable.
None of it makes sense. His mind is drenched in paranoia. His thoughts are like secrets whispered in shadows.
I am weary. I want to leave. And I never want to come back again. But he is the keeper of the story. He has locked in his mind a million images of my mother that I long to see, images he will take to the grave with him if he does not give them away. And so I ask him to tell me the things I don’t know. Tell me the stories she would have told me.
He slips into story and memory, like a song the heart knows. And I find myself softening as I listen. It soothes some aching part of me to know these things I’ve never heard. A puzzle piece found and put in place.
“Do you remember that gift?” I ask him tentatively, a chink in my armor showing. “The one you sent for my birthday? The one that was my favorite?”
I am a small girl tearing at the packaging tape on a big brown box. Pure joy rushes through my veins because it isn’t often that a box so big comes for a person so small. Mommy stands beside me, watching, with a smile on her face.
No. He doesn’t recall.
“I didn’t send that.” The corner of his mouth curls. “She must have sent that to you.”
…
Feb 2, 2012
Things Only Heaven Can Fix (Part Two)
…
A man is hunched there on his bed. His chest is sunken in. His cheeks hollowed. Hair, white.
The last time I saw him it was black. That’s how many years it has been. Time and cancer have whittled him away. But I know this man.
I still know him.
His bearded face turns toward us. And I look into familiar eyes, the same pools of black that peered so attentively at me in that other hospital. Twenty-one years ago. His lips were the ones that uttered those words I cannot forget. The words that changed my life. His face is my vivid memory of that moment. And I have wished many times since then that it was not.
I used to crane my neck to look up at him; he was so much bigger than me. Now I look down on him. Is it wrong that I find some kind of power in this?
So many thoughts, so many emotions, spinning around inside. It’s confusing. Disorienting. What was once adoration has been smothered by hurt.
I feel my teeth clench though I will myself to bend down and hug him. He manages to weakly acknowledge me. But even that feels like rejection all over again.
You were all I had left of her, the one my world revolved around. And you stole that from me. You killed her a second time. The fragile remnants that were left, you obliterated.
I am a small child again, running through a crowd. My hand has slipped from hers. I’d only looked away for a brief moment and she vanished. I am running. Pushing. Frantic to find her. Frightened, as only a child can be.
Lost.
Perhaps it is then that I realize how my identity and my personhood are so tightly intertwined with hers.
And suddenly it is as if there are two rooms. I stand in one. And he in another. I cannot see her but I know she is there. In the other room. Out of reach.
He stands at the door. He looks at me.
And he closes it.
I weep and wail. I bang on the door. But there is no answer. He will never open it. The other room is impenetrable.
And she is gone.
“What took you so long?” He asked, his dark eyes judging our intentions. “I thought you’d be here hours ago.”
I look at my lap, my legs bent rigidly over the seat of the visitor’s chair. I had thought you’d be here years ago.
Bitterness rises, but I swallow it down. And in its place comes a desperate question.
…
A man is hunched there on his bed. His chest is sunken in. His cheeks hollowed. Hair, white.
The last time I saw him it was black. That’s how many years it has been. Time and cancer have whittled him away. But I know this man.
I still know him.
His bearded face turns toward us. And I look into familiar eyes, the same pools of black that peered so attentively at me in that other hospital. Twenty-one years ago. His lips were the ones that uttered those words I cannot forget. The words that changed my life. His face is my vivid memory of that moment. And I have wished many times since then that it was not.
I used to crane my neck to look up at him; he was so much bigger than me. Now I look down on him. Is it wrong that I find some kind of power in this?
So many thoughts, so many emotions, spinning around inside. It’s confusing. Disorienting. What was once adoration has been smothered by hurt.
I feel my teeth clench though I will myself to bend down and hug him. He manages to weakly acknowledge me. But even that feels like rejection all over again.
You were all I had left of her, the one my world revolved around. And you stole that from me. You killed her a second time. The fragile remnants that were left, you obliterated.
I am a small child again, running through a crowd. My hand has slipped from hers. I’d only looked away for a brief moment and she vanished. I am running. Pushing. Frantic to find her. Frightened, as only a child can be.
Lost.
Perhaps it is then that I realize how my identity and my personhood are so tightly intertwined with hers.
And suddenly it is as if there are two rooms. I stand in one. And he in another. I cannot see her but I know she is there. In the other room. Out of reach.
He stands at the door. He looks at me.
And he closes it.
I weep and wail. I bang on the door. But there is no answer. He will never open it. The other room is impenetrable.
And she is gone.
“What took you so long?” He asked, his dark eyes judging our intentions. “I thought you’d be here hours ago.”
I look at my lap, my legs bent rigidly over the seat of the visitor’s chair. I had thought you’d be here years ago.
Bitterness rises, but I swallow it down. And in its place comes a desperate question.
…
Jan 25, 2012
Things Only Heaven Can Fix
PART ONE
I stand inside a metal box, I and the one whose face resembles our mother’s. We say nothing. Because there is nothing to say. We look at our shoes. At buttons with numbers. And our blurry reflection on brushed steel.
The elevator doors open to the smell of sterilization and sickness. Instantly a flood of images rush back to me: A body laying eerily still on a bed of white linens. Snow falling through a window. A sharp, cold pane on my fingertips.
Florescent lights line the hallway with a brightness that strains the eyes. And yet it feels so dark.
Coughing. Beeping machines. Wheels grinding along. Blank faces looking back at me. The soles of my shoes squeak on the white tile floor. I am dragging my feet. We’ve driven six hours to do this – to find some kind of redemption in the ashes - but the entire length of that trip I’d wanted to turn the car around and forget this.
There is no turning back now.
Counting numbers upon doors, it comes closer. We find our way, and yet I feel more lost with each step.
He is written on the door. A small whiteboard with black marker spells out the letters of a name we have not spoken since he killed us with his words and walked away.
In a short time that name will be erased. Expunged.
The thought lingers in my mind, numbly, for a moment.
He loved me once. I thought. He showered me with affection and spoiled me with gifts. (His were always my favorite, if only because they were from him.) Somewhere, all the way back in that distant place, there was laughter. Games. Jokes.
But not anymore. I cannot even reach far enough back to hear its echo. It is long gone.
Bitterness has choked it out.
Words upon actions… upon silence… have dug a great chasm here. I fear I cannot cross it.
The heavy door is before me.
I am keenly aware of my humanity, standing here. Of the breath in my lungs. Of my pounding heart. My utter weakness. Every pore seems to hum with hyper awareness of my limitations. I am sure I cannot do this.
Still, somehow, I breathe a prayer. And I step over the threshold.
…
I stand inside a metal box, I and the one whose face resembles our mother’s. We say nothing. Because there is nothing to say. We look at our shoes. At buttons with numbers. And our blurry reflection on brushed steel.
The elevator doors open to the smell of sterilization and sickness. Instantly a flood of images rush back to me: A body laying eerily still on a bed of white linens. Snow falling through a window. A sharp, cold pane on my fingertips.
Florescent lights line the hallway with a brightness that strains the eyes. And yet it feels so dark.
Coughing. Beeping machines. Wheels grinding along. Blank faces looking back at me. The soles of my shoes squeak on the white tile floor. I am dragging my feet. We’ve driven six hours to do this – to find some kind of redemption in the ashes - but the entire length of that trip I’d wanted to turn the car around and forget this.
There is no turning back now.
Counting numbers upon doors, it comes closer. We find our way, and yet I feel more lost with each step.
He is written on the door. A small whiteboard with black marker spells out the letters of a name we have not spoken since he killed us with his words and walked away.
In a short time that name will be erased. Expunged.
The thought lingers in my mind, numbly, for a moment.
He loved me once. I thought. He showered me with affection and spoiled me with gifts. (His were always my favorite, if only because they were from him.) Somewhere, all the way back in that distant place, there was laughter. Games. Jokes.
But not anymore. I cannot even reach far enough back to hear its echo. It is long gone.
Bitterness has choked it out.
Words upon actions… upon silence… have dug a great chasm here. I fear I cannot cross it.
The heavy door is before me.
I am keenly aware of my humanity, standing here. Of the breath in my lungs. Of my pounding heart. My utter weakness. Every pore seems to hum with hyper awareness of my limitations. I am sure I cannot do this.
Still, somehow, I breathe a prayer. And I step over the threshold.
…
Jan 19, 2012
The Power of Words
Nothing is written. Yet. But the possibilities are infinite. I stare at a blank white page and wonder at the power of words. They unravel the folds of the human mind and lay open the chambers of the human heart. They hold the power to connect, to bind separate entities through the shaping of the mouth or the shaping of the pen.
Words.
Simple or complex.
Like colors on a palette, painting worlds and stories. With a single word a universe is born, bursting forth from nothingness. I am an image-bearer in this. It meets some strange need I have deep in my core. To create. With words.
But words are dangerous too. They easily entangle; they get stuck sometimes. Come out wrong. Say what I didn’t mean to say, and mean what I didn’t want to mean. They have a will of their own if I lack the brush to stroke them.
Words have the power to kill. To sever. To wound.
Destroy.
“Your mommy passed away,” he said, sitting in front of me, this intimate stranger. His eyes were pools of darkness and I felt myself sinking into them. “She’s gone.”
She's gone. Two simple words that sent a child’s world into dizzying chaos. Two words that severed my past from my future and at once divided who I would have been from who I have become. Two words that ripped everything away, in an instant, and left me irreparably broken. I have not been whole since they were spoken.
I know full well the power of words.
But in that scandalous power there is also beauty. The words form a story. My story. Yours. And a greater one than either of those - a story that began when the first Word breathed life into the cosmic formlessness.
I will read it after the last word is written and I will marvel at the Author.
I marvel now. I see the story everywhere. It’s inside of me. And I in it.
Words were spoken, and out of vast emptiness comes fullness.
What was dead comes to life.
Starting anew.
I stare at a blank white page and I wonder.
Words.
Simple or complex.
Like colors on a palette, painting worlds and stories. With a single word a universe is born, bursting forth from nothingness. I am an image-bearer in this. It meets some strange need I have deep in my core. To create. With words.
But words are dangerous too. They easily entangle; they get stuck sometimes. Come out wrong. Say what I didn’t mean to say, and mean what I didn’t want to mean. They have a will of their own if I lack the brush to stroke them.
Words have the power to kill. To sever. To wound.
Destroy.
“Your mommy passed away,” he said, sitting in front of me, this intimate stranger. His eyes were pools of darkness and I felt myself sinking into them. “She’s gone.”
She's gone. Two simple words that sent a child’s world into dizzying chaos. Two words that severed my past from my future and at once divided who I would have been from who I have become. Two words that ripped everything away, in an instant, and left me irreparably broken. I have not been whole since they were spoken.
I know full well the power of words.
But in that scandalous power there is also beauty. The words form a story. My story. Yours. And a greater one than either of those - a story that began when the first Word breathed life into the cosmic formlessness.
I will read it after the last word is written and I will marvel at the Author.
I marvel now. I see the story everywhere. It’s inside of me. And I in it.
Words were spoken, and out of vast emptiness comes fullness.
What was dead comes to life.
Starting anew.
I stare at a blank white page and I wonder.
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